You're Not As Alone As You Think You Are
by NCISVU
Summary: New Year's Eve is the one night a year Gibbs goes to bed early. Team fic. No pairings.


**Author's Note:** This is set in Season 3, just after Ziva joined the team. Also, there's a tiny spoiler for _The Namesake_, if you know what you're looking for. This was written for the 'What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?' challenge on NFA and is also filling the 'learning to be loved' square on my hurt comfort bingo card on livejournal.

* * *

**You're Not As Alone As You Think You Are**

"You might as well give it up, Abs," Tony said as the Goth stared longingly out the window of her apartment. "He's not coming."

"He has to come," Abby said with a pained strain to her voice, "right?"

"What do you think?" Tony asked gently. "Every year you invite him over and every year he doesn't come."

"What does he do?" Ziva asked.

"Believe it or not, Gibbs always goes to bed early on New Year's Eve," Tony explained.

"Why?" Ziva asked. "I did not think Gibbs ever went to bed early."

Tony shrugged as he peeked out the window. "I think it's too painful for him. New Year's can kinda be romantic; you share the first kiss of the year with that special someone and dream about what the coming year holds. Boss lost his special someone and he probably thinks he doesn't have anything to look forward to."

"He would if he'd stop being so stubborn!" Abby grumbled. "Every year he gets invited to birthday celebrations, cookouts, Thanksgiving dinner, Christmas parties, all kinds of stuff but he chooses to sit in his basement instead."

"He lost his wife and only child, Abby," Tim said. "Holidays are hard when you're family's gone."

"That was over a decade ago," Abby said, "and he has a family. _We_ are his family. We love him. We care. Why can't he see that?"

"I suppose we could try to show him," Tony said. "Normally I'd rather wake a bear from hibernation than disturb a sleeping Gibbs but we could make an exception."

"What did you have in mind?" Ziva asked.

"I dunno. Let's just go over there. We can take the hats and noisemakers, champagne and cupcakes and just show up."

"If he won't come to the party, we'll take the party to him," Abby said with a smile. "I like it!"

"I'm not sure this is such a good idea," Tim said.

"Come on, McWorryWart," Tony said. "If he's gonna kill anyone, it'll be me. That'll give you guys a chance to get away."

* * *

Gibbs could hear the group rustling around in his living room and knew exactly who was there. The opening and closing of the front door, as quiet as it had been, had awakened him and he'd laid awake trying to figure out what they were up to. When things downstairs got quiet, he listened harder.

"_Who's gonna wake Gibbs up?" Tim asked quietly. _

"_My vote's for Abby," Tony said. "She's the favorite."_

"_I am and I would but what if he sleeps naked?" Abby asked._

"_Boss doesn't sleep naked," Tony said. "He wears like a hundred layers every day. He's not gonna strip it all off to go to bed."_

"_We don't know that for sure," Abby pointed out._

"_This was your idea, Tony," Ziva said. "Why don't you do it?"_

"_Because he's scared," Tim goaded._

"_Fine," Tony grumbled. "I'll do it." He walked up three steps then turned around and faced the group. "If Gibbs kills me, I just want you guys to know it's been fun."_

Gibbs propped himself up on a couple pillows and tucked his hands behind his head. He listened to the cautious footsteps coming towards his door and turned the bedside lamp on when Tony entered his room.

"You're awake," Tony said.

"Mm-hmm," Gibbs hummed. "There're people rummaging around in my living room. Kinda hard to sleep through that."

"We were quiet," Tony said defensively. He smiled sheepishly at the glare he received. "Guess we're lucky you didn't think we were burglars and shoot us, huh?"

"What're you guys doing here?" Gibbs asked.

"It's New Years, Boss," Tony said as if that would explain everything.

"Actually it's still New Year's Eve," Gibbs pointed out, "and that doesn't answer my question."

"We didn't want you to be alone," Tony said.

"I like alone."

"Okay, we wanted to celebrate with you."

"I don't celebrate," Gibbs said stubbornly. "You know that. I don't know why you guys keep trying to get me to celebrate holidays when you know damn well I have no interest."

"Why? Because we're your family, Boss, and you're our family," Tony said sternly. "We love you whether you like it or not and we wanna spend time with you but if you'd rather lay up here and wallow in self-misery then so be it! We'll be downstairs." He turned and left without another word.

Gibbs rolled his eyes as Tony closed the door a little harder than he needed to. He searched the depths of his soul for a reason why he was right and Tony was wrong, knowing it was the other way around. The team may have come over uninvited and requested something of him that he didn't want to give but he knew in his heart that they were doing it out of love and that they were right.

He knew it was past time for him to pick himself up and move on but he wasn't sure how. He'd lost one family but he had another one. He didn't want to lose them because of his stubbornness. The team was his family and he did love them so why was this so hard? He used to love holidays until he was fourteen and his mother took her life. Shannon and Kelly had renewed his love for them but when they'd been taken from him, he'd started hating holidays more than ever. He carried around too much hurt to celebrate.

A soft knock on his door drew his attention away from his thoughts. "What?" he asked.

The door opened slowly with a creak and Abby poked her head in. Gibbs motioned her over and she was instantly at his side.

"Tony didn't mean to yell," she said. They'd heard the raised voices downstairs and Tony had told them what had happened.

"I deserved it," Gibbs admitted as he pushed himself up and propped his back against the headboard.

Abby climbed into bed next to him and curled into his side. "Can I tell you something?"

"Sure," Gibbs said with a sigh.

"Gloria died a couple weeks before Christmas," she started. "It hurts to lose your mom any time of the year; it hurts to lose anybody. I know how you feel, Gibbs. When Christmas rolled around that year and everybody was all happy and excited, I was still devastated."

Gibbs buried his nose in Abby's hair and pressed a kiss to the top of her head.

"Christmas hasn't been the same since I lost her but once I started trying again, it got better. Now, every year, I put up a tree and surround myself with family and friends and do my best to carry on without her. That doesn't mean it doesn't hurt and it doesn't mean I've forgotten about her. It just means it hurts a little less. Gloria would be furious if she knew I was skipping over the fun parts of life and Shannon and Kelly wouldn't be very happy with you either. It sucks being the ones left behind but life can't stop because of it. You'll never forget them, Gibbs. They're always gonna be in your heart but your heart's big enough to let other people in too."

Gibbs kissed Abby's head again as he stroked his fingers through her long, dark hair. He understood what she was saying. They were words he'd heard before but words were easily said and much harder to act on. Some of life's speed bumps were just about impossible to get over.

"You can't do it on your own, Gibbs," Abby continued, "but you have a family right here with all of us. We love you. We can help you find happiness again this but not if you keep hiding out in your basement," she paused and looked around the room, "or your bedroom."

"When did you get so smart?" Gibbs teased lightly.

Abby smiled as she rubbed her fingers across the logo on his t-shirt. "I've always been smart. That's why you hired me."

"That wasn't the only reason, Abs."

Abby smiled and cuddled up closer to him. "Will you please come downstairs and watch the ball drop with us? It'll only take a couple minutes and then we'll leave you alone if want."

Gibbs decided a couple minutes didn't sound too bad. It said a lot to him that the team had shown up at his house. He sometimes wondered if he only got invited along because they felt obligated or possibly felt sorry for him but they'd taken a risk coming over in the middle of the night and waking him up and he admired that. "Okay," he agreed.

Abby squealed in delight and popped out of bed. She grabbed Gibbs' arm and dragged him along behind her to the living room where Tony, Tim and Ziva were waiting. Tony still looked a little upset and Tim and Ziva just looked nervous but Abby was unfazed by what had happened earlier. She put a party hat on Gibbs' head then led him over to the couch. He sat down next to Tony and Abby grabbed one of the cupcakes they'd brought over and plopped herself down in his lap.

"Listen, Tony—"

"Don't you dare break rule number six, Boss," Tony interrupted.

Gibbs just smiled as he reached over and affectionately squeezed Tony's shoulder. "Thank you."

Tony knew Gibbs was thanking him for putting him in his place. He may have played the role of the class clown but this was serious and he was one of only a few people who could chew Gibbs out and get away with it. "Any time," he said, returning Gibbs' smile and finally looking like he was relaxing. "Did you grab the confetti, Abs?"

"No, I didn't want to make too big of a mess," Abby answered.

"Good point," Tony said. "It'd be nice to make it to the new year without another head slap."

"I don't know, Tony," Abby teased. "I think you secretly like all those head slaps."

While the two of them were talking, Gibbs arched his head around and took a big bite out of the cupcake in Abby's hand.

"Gibbs!" Abby protested. "Do we really need another cupcake incident on a holiday?"

"What?" Gibbs asked innocently. "I just wanted a little bite."

"First of all, that was a _big_ bite and secondly, you ate all the frosting!"

"The frosting's the best part," Gibbs said with a grin.

Abby glared at him but couldn't hold it very long before it turned into a smile. "You're lucky I love you," she said with mock irritation.

Gibbs pulled her against his chest and kissed her cheek.

"One minute," Abby announced. "Is everybody ready?"

Tony tooted his noisemaker to answer earning a smack from Ziva.

"Ready," Tim said, laughing at his friends' antics.

The group watched the clock on the screen until it got down to ten seconds then they joined in the countdown with the group in Times Square.

"Ten… nine… eight… seven… six… five… four… three… two… one!"

They blew into their noisemakers around shouts of 'Happy New Year' before exchanging hugs and kisses. Gibbs poured champagne and passed it out then they toasted to the new year while the party continued on the TV screen.

"This is way more fun than hanging out at my house," Abby said.

"Or the bar," Tony added.

"Or playing video games," Tim put in.

"Or traveling," Ziva finished.

Everyone sat quietly waiting for Gibbs to say something.

"Boss?" Tony finally asked.

"This was supposed to be the night I caught up on my sleep." Gibbs joked. "Now I'm gonna be tired all year."

"Although it wouldn't surprise me if you only needed one night a year to catch up on your sleep, you can't deny this is fun," Abby said, finding her way back into his lap.

"This is fun," Gibbs admitted. "It would be even more fun with more of those cupcakes and some beer."

"Pizza!" Tony said excitedly. "We should order a pizza."

Gibbs looked over at Tony and laughed as he tossed him the phone.

* * *

Gibbs pulled the blankets around Abby and Ziva's shoulders before pressing a kiss to both of their heads. He pulled his bedroom door closed and left them to sleep then went down the hall to check on Tim. He took the arm that was flopped over the edge of the bed and rested it against Tim's chest then closed the door and headed back downstairs. Tony was curled up on an air mattress in front of the front of the fire, snoring softly. Gibbs covered him up before adding another log to the fire.

"Thanks guys," he whispered. His team always had a way of reminding him that he wasn't as alone as he thought he was, especially when it came to holidays. He decided to break his moratorium on New Year's resolutions and made one to let his team—no, his family, into his life more. He smiled as he laid down on the couch and pulled a blanket over himself. He closed his eyes and drifted off to the sounds of Tony snoring.

**The End**


End file.
